Talk:Part of speech

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Japanese adjectives

READ THIS!

Just in order to keep the editors calm, we know that Japanese does not have, in fact, "two classes of adjectives", but noun-like qualifiers ("na-adjectives") and stative verbs ("i-adjectives"). The "two classes" in the article are a common and very useful simplification. There's definitely a problem with the "correct" view vs. the "traditional" view. IIRC even Japanese language and Japanese grammar contradict each other on this respect. --Pablo D. Flores 12:06, 11 May 2005 (UTC)in other words, there are different speech that is composed by a person

(Old, corrected)

This needs attention badly, but from the start, I think the Japanese examples are nonsense. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but shinsetsu is a "na-adjective" or a "nominal adjective" or an "adjectival noun" (or whatever), and that doesn't change no matter what particle you put after it, ne? Shinsetsu ni is an adverbial *phrase*, not a word, and ni is an adposition, not a part-of-speech marker! -- Pablo D. Flores 14:01, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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This article seems pretty far afield from real liguisting research. For example, the parts of speech listed are pretty Latin-based (most Asian languages, for example, don't have anything that can be reasonably called an "adjective", and most languages do not distinguish adverbs, even European ones). Likewise, I don't think the following sentence is true:

In most languages a word can only be one part of speech. English allows some words to play different parts of speech.

For example, "set" can be a noun (such as a set in mathematics), a verb (set it down), or an adjective (the trap is set).

That is, it is clearly true that English words are flexible, and many other languages are less flexible, but I don't think the categroical statement that other languages generally follow the one word/one part of speech rule really holds. --Lee Daniel Crocker

• 2002.03.20: Thank you for that excellent example; I agree with Lee. There is also the confusion of "word" as grapheme (homophones) and "word" as a phonemic item (homonyms), as well as whether we really consider the meanings of "set" above to be the "same word" in any derivational sense, as opposed to different words that are "just pronounced the same". There certainly are many languages that assign the same phonemic string several different meanings. For example, the Mandarin Chinese syllable 1yi has approximately 60-ish different possible meanings, depending on context. Also, almost all languages have productive processes for transforming a morpheme from one lexical class to another - the "verbing" of nouns in English is a good example, as is the "adverb-ing" and "preposition-ing" of certain classes of Mandarin Chinese verbs. I'd also be careful to distinguish the "schoolmarm grammarian's" definition of English parts of speech from, for example, the lexical classes of Transformational-Generative Grammar. How to do so in a reasonably clear manner is not for me to undertake 2 hours past my bedtime on a work night. *grin* pgdudda

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One example of a dodgy part of speech concept is the preposition. It's definition has a word order requirement in it. This results in the need of another part of speech concept postposition, which plays the same role as preposition, but has a different word order requirement.

The situation is anologous to calling an adjective something else if it comes after the noun it qualifies.

Also there may be a case for regarding a preposition/postposition as a different part of speech depending on whether the phrase it heads acts as an adjective, adverb or indirect object.

Is preposition a bona-fide lexical category? Or does P stand for proposition or postposition?

--- User:Karl Palmen

• 2002.03.21: Hi Karl! Hrmmm... Yes, it's a "bona-fide" lexical category - I believe linguists use the term "adposition" to cover the set {preposition, postposition}. But I'm not certain of the terminology, which is why I haven't gone there. *grin* I do know that in TGG, the symbol P is used to stand for this syntactic function / lexical category. The situation is similar to the use of "affix" to cover the set {prefix, suffix, infix} - affixes function similarly across languages, but which of the three subtypes is used varies from language to language. pgdudda

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I'm disambiguating Conjunction, and there is no page on the grammatical sense. Should this link to Grammatical conjunction, or is that phrase not used? If not, is another phrase used, or should we say Conjunction (grammar)? I will leave a link to the disambiguation page for now. — Toby 19:33 Aug 22, 2002 (PDT)

A google search turns up only 34 instances of "grammatical conjunction", but it sounds reasonable to me. --Brion

Sounds reasonable to me too, but I don't think that we should use it if ordinary linguists and grammarians normally don't. This differs from Logical conjunction and Astronomical conjunction, which I have seen in books. After all, Conjunction (grammar) sounds reasonable too. — Toby 10:55 Aug 24, 2002 (PDT)

Circumpositions

Regarding the addition of circumpositions: it's OK to add them, but the example given in the edit summary is not a circumposition, it's a circumfix. The ge- and -t of gemacht are grammatical bound morphemes. I think the French ne ... pas would qualify as a circumposition. I don't know of any other languages that have them, though, and even in French ne is often deleted when pas follows. --Pablo D. Flores 10:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I apologize for the poor example. I guess I mixed things up. A better example is "von ... aus" as in "_Von_ der Burg _aus_ hast Du einen guten Überblick über die Stadt." (From the castle, you have a good overview over the city.) C.J. 24 May 2005. 17:21 (MEST)

Why "part of speech"?

How did we wind up with this article title? It seems awfully ambiguous for an article title and I don't quite see the problem with using word class. Can someone explain why it should stay under the current title?

Peter ^Isotalo 16:35, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

this may have been written by authors who are not familar with that terminology. i moved to lexical category. perhaps a separate article should be on parts of speech which explains things from a traditional perspective. parts of speech have rather long history which probably cannot be covered adequately in a general article on lexical categories. peace – ishwar  (speak) 23:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I have a background in linguistic software, and it was my experience that in 90% of the literature within this domain referred to such as part of speech. I just wanted to point that out, that it is confusing to other audiences with such backgrounds that there is a need to use the name 'lexical category'. It may be more technically appropriate, but it differs from the popular usage in academic articles regarding software. For example, try doing a Google search for part of speech tagging or going to the article Part-of-speech_tagging. I just did a search and it found more than 2 million pages. Just trying to point that out, that linguists seem to have total control over this particular sense of the phrase, and the fact that part of speech redirects here is confusing for others like myself. Perhaps a disambiguation page for Part of speech with a link to lexical category and something along the lines of Part of speech (computing) would help. Since this move was done a year ago and I do not consider myself authoritative I will not make the change, but perhaps it will at least enlighten someone as to yet another interpretation. Josh Froelich 20:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick note about the article title. The main article has been renamed 'lexical category', which I agree with. However, the category page is still 'part of speech' and it of course still links to the article 'part of speech', which then redirects. I am not very well-versed in changing it though, should a change be necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.24.80.145 (talk • contribs) 2 July 2007

I have moved the article back to "Part of speech". This is the usual term, much more common than "lexical category". Many of the references given in the article use the term "part of speech". I am missing the justification for the use of the term "lexical category". Try searching Google scholar for "part of speech" vs Google scholar for "lexical category" vs Google scholar for "word class". --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:02, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Also notice the existence of Category:Parts of speech, created on 31 July 2004. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I feel like it is important to note that when discussing word classes in a linguistic sense, there is a very large difference between part of speech and lexical categories. A lexical category is a class of words that notional content (or physical meaning in the world). This is limited to nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and sometimes prepositions and pronouns. Other categories that would be considered parts of speech, such as conjunctions, determiners, and auxiliaries, are included in what is known as functional categories, or words/morphological elements that only serve a grammatical purpose. For instance, the word "the" lacks any kind of meaning without the noun it modifies, just as "and" is meaningless outside of its role in connecting phrases. Because these words do not have any meaning in the world and only serve to make the sentence grammatical, they cannot be considered lexical. Therefore, I would suggest that either lexical category be removed from the "also called" section in the beginning paragraph and given a section later on in the article or it be given its own separate page entirely because as it stands it implies a false synonymy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.97.14.99 (talk) 22:35, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Parts of speech may seem ambiguous but that's because every nation every country and every language has a different way of using language. Each language switches its placement of, for example, nouns and adjectives. §§§§ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acole511 (talk • contribs) 20:32, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

But I agree that this is about "word classes" and not about "part of speech"! which would be "predicate, subject, object". Correspondingly it links to the German page "de:Wortart" (type of word) and not to "de:Satz (Grammatik)" where the functional units of the phrase are discussed. — MFH:Talk 10:00, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Generative Grammar Lexical Categories

Generative grammar defines lexical categories as 4 possibilities resultant from the binary features [+N] and [+V]. Underthis schema nouns are [+N,-V], verbs [-N,+V], adjective [+N,+V], and prepositions [-N, -V]. There are no lexical categories other than these. With this understanding one can better explain the relationship relationship, such as the fact that both nouns and adjectives require case or for creating more accurate context-sensitive rules such as the of-insertion rule in English where null=> of / [+N]_NP, where NP stands for noun phrase. If possible can the linguists who do the pages considered linguistics stub confirm this and provide a better written and more expansive section?

It's true. It's been argued that this way of setting things up are not very insightful, however, and that by such generative grammarians as Mark Baker. Neither 15:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

What is it?

I'm a sophomore in college admittedly with poor English skills, but trying to improve. Isn't this supposed to be an encyclopedia? I am not criticizing the poriginal authors of this article, who know much more than I, but I will say that the first sentence of this article contains three words that I, and probably the majority of the population aren't familiar with: 'lexical', 'syntactic' and 'morphological'. I have learned that often the best way to quickly learn a subject in Wiki is to go back to the original article (view history tab) before it became polluted. I applaude the original authors and ask those who are concerned with exacting definitions to remember that approximation is OK early in these articles for the sake of the general public. I am not completely sure but it seems to me that highly educated people (or people who think they are) often try to use WIKI as an archival reference manual, or something to that effect. Wouldn't you agree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.233.66.61 (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Article

To which of those eight word classes do articles belong? --Jobu0101 (talk) 17:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

In traditional prescriptive English grammar (e.g., what you learn in elementary school), articles are adjectives. In formal linguistics, they are considered determiner, as you could see if you looked in the article before posting your question. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:06, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. But in formal linguistics you have more than those eight word classes. So what I was looking for is the first part of your answer. I can't find this information in the article. --Jobu0101 (talk) 10:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The determiners are given way down, beyond the section on English in the list of open and closed classes. This should be changed so readers don't have a problem finding this information.

Demonstratives are suffering the same fate.Kdammers (talk) 09:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The claim in this article that articles are "considered by some grammarians to be a type of adjective" is misleading and should be changed.

That claim cites the 2014 Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, which reads, "Some grammarians, even later ones, wrongly considered the articles to be a special kind of adjective" (Note wrongly and considered—past tense). In the following sentence, that article goes on to give an example of such a "later" grammarian, from 1711. Robshpprd (talk) 00:55, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Historical classes

"defined four main categories of words: [...] These 15 were" looks like a typing error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.209.199.229 (talk) 06:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Numbers - 9th Part of Speech

Indo European langages have the common denominator that there is nine part of speeches. In this article numbers are forgotten. Ex: four, the third, zero etc. If English doesn't count numbers as part of speeches - where do they then belong ? (For instance Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian - languages that not are Indo European, lackes prepositions) Boeing720 (talk) 23:09, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Answer: going back to very old books on English grammar, we find "noun numeral" being treated as a separate part of speech, same as in Latin ("nomen numerale"). Nowadays, many English grammarists conflate numerals with the parts of speech whose functions they serve: nouns (cardinal numerals, e.g., "one", and collective numerals, e.g., "dozen"), adjectives (ordinal numerals, e.g., "first", and multiplier numerals, e.g., "single") and adverbs (multiplicative numerals, e.g., "once", and distributive numerals, e.g., "singly"). 141.239.243.190 (talk) 09:55, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

What list?

Early on, the article refers to a list of PoS 'above.' There is no list above that statement that I can find. My guess is is that there once was a list with 1.verb, 2. noun etc. that got moved or deleted but the reference to that list got overlooked. Right?211.225.33.104 (talk) 09:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

(Nominal) classifiers

The article states that (Indo-?) European don't have nominal classifiers (linguistics. The linked-to article gives at least one example: head of cattle and the French equivalent (perhaps source).211.225.33.104 (talk) 09:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

General Suggestions

I believe that parts of this article could be extended and also more concisely elaborated on. In addition English, it would be helpful to introduce sections on the word classes in other languages. Perhaps there can be a section added to explain the distinction between lexical and grammatical categories. To expand on the paragraph about how certain words in English can fall into multiple categories, it might be helpful to explain how to determine the word class (via tests or clues) if a word has an ambiguous category. Some citations are also missing in the latter half of the article. Cnchia (talk) 02:51, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Ling 300, UBC, right? You all received the assignment to post on a talk page. Interestingly, not one of you has of yet written anything positive about the article you are critiqueing. Criticism is really easy, too easy. --Tjo3ya (talk) 03:34, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Duplicated information

In this article, half of the information is stated twice. I'm not sure if they're the same or just very similar, but I don't want to accidentally delete information that wasn't actually duplicated.Zombiedude347 (talk) 04:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

"Traditional"

What was called "traditional" here, is not traditional. Traditional tems - excluding modern (= degenerative, below simply younger) English terms - are:

(Ancient) Greek	ὄνομα (ónoma)		ἐπιϑετικόν (epithetikón)	ἀντωνυμία (antōnymía), ἀντονομασίᾱ (antonomasíā)	ἄρϑρον (árthron)		μετοχῆ (metokhḗ)	ῥῆμα (rhêma)	ἐπίρρημα (epírrhēma)	πρόθεσις (próthesis)	σύνδεσμος (sýndesmos)	ἐπιφώνημα (epiphṓnēma)
Latin	nomen	[nomen] substantivum	[nomen] adjectivum	pronomen	articulus	{[nomen] numerale}	participium	verbum	adverbium	praepositio	conjunctio	interjectio
modern Latin-German terms	Nomen	Substantiv	Adjektiv	Pronomen	Artikel	{Numerale}	Partizip	Verb	Adverb	Präposition	Konjunktion	Interjektion
modern German terms	Namenwort, Nennwort	Dingwort, Hauptwort	Beiwort, Eigenschaftswort	Fürwort	Geschlechtswort, Begleiter	{Zahlwort}	Mittelwort	Zeitwort, Tätigkeitswort	Umstandswort, Nebenwort	Verhältniswort, Vorwort	Bindewort	Ausrufewort, Empfindungswort
English (older)	noun	[noun] substantive	[noun] adjective	pronoun	article	{numeral}	participle	verb	adverb	preposition	conjunction	interjection
English (younger)		noun	adjective	pronoun ‡¹	article	(numeral)	(participle)	verb	adverb	preposition	conjunction	interjection

• Latin nomen is either "nomen = nomen substantivum & nomen adjectivum" or "nomen = nomen substantivum & nomen adjectivum & nomen numerale & pronomen & articlus". Same with Latin-German and German terms and most likely with traditional English terms.
• [] = optional parts of terms
• () = not considered a part of speech
• {} = not sure whether or not it was/is considered a part of speech, or whether or nor considerations differ
• ‡¹ German Pronomen and Latin pronoun is what in modern English is known as pronoun and determiner (the later being viewed as a subclass of adjective in modern English)

Notes:

• Older English terms can e.g. be found in [books.google.de/books?id=cUcVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2] (where it is "noun = noun substantive & noun adjective").
• There are resp. were many more German terms (e.g. Zwischenwort, Wandelwort).

-15:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.133.123.218 (talk)

I think "traditional" here is supposed to correspond to what you call "younger". Perhaps it's not the best term, but I can think of anything better to describe it. The point is to distinguish it from the "even younger" modern systems which distinguish things like determiners, complementizers etc. W. P. Uzer (talk) 15:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey, do you have a source or sources for this table? It looks really nice, and if it's sourced, it could be added to the article. — Eru·tuon 17:30, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if we necessarily want to fill the article with foreign-language terms for the various parts of speech, unless they have some particular significance (if German, why not also French, Russian, Chinese, etc. etc.?) But certainly we could do with more detailed information about the various listings of parts of speech that have been proposed at various times, and on such things as when and by whom (and in relation to which languages) "noun" came to denote only substantives, etc. W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, including the Greek and Latin terms would be relevant for discussing the etymologies of the English terms, and including the modern German terms, many of which are calques of the Latin terms, would at least be interesting and could be connected to the discussion of how the English terms developed (as transcriptions rather than calques). And we could certainly discuss the terms in other languages, although those that are not related to the Western grammatical tradition would be best placed in another section or article. My perspective is, if we have something to say about the terms in other languages, to compare and contrast them with the English terms etymologically or otherwise, or to compare the grammatical systems they represent with the English grammatical system, they could certainly be included. (Simply listing them, though, would be a little off-topic.) — Eru·tuon 21:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Additions:

• Older Greek and Latin "linguists" just used 3 terms, which are like "noun", "verb" and "conjunction". Back then adverbs were put next to verbs etc. Older Latin terms: nominatus (~ nomen), vocabulum (~ [nomen] substantivum), convinctio (~ conjunctio), verbum temporale (~ verbum). verbum temporale is still in use (e.g. at la.wiktionary), but maybe it's a modern reinvention.
• In English there exists (or existed?) the term "nameword" which means the same as "noun" (though I don't know which "noun").
• Numerals (like "three", "fourth" etc.): Some number words are nomen (like "three", "fourth", "dozen"), but some aren't (like "thrice" which is an adverb). So "nomen numerale" just includes some number words (usually just cardinale numbers (like "three") and ordinal numbers (like "fourth")). Just "numerale" (or "numerus", though that might be rare"), Latin-German "Numerale" and German "Zahlwort" perhaps sometimes include all kinds of number words, though then it's maybe not considered a part of speech.

@Eru·tuon:

• Greek terms are from [logeion.uchicago.edu/index.html] and [www.zeno.org/Pape-1880].
• Older Latin terms are from [www.zeno.org/Georges-1913], used e.g. by Varro ("De lingua latina") and Quintilian ("De institutione oratoria" or "Institutio oratoria"). Varro's text: [www.thelatinlibrary.com/varro.html] (Latin); translation of Quintilian's text: [penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/home.html].
• Older English terms are e.g. in [books.google.de/books?id=cUcVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2], though that is in Early Modern English and "nouns" are written with capital letters like in German, so it's actually Noun Substantive, Article etc. in there.
• Latin and German terms: They are common in Latin and German. So good grammar books and dictionaries should know them. Some older German terms accompanied by Latin terms can e.g. be found in [www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Gottsched,+Johann+Christoph/Theoretische+Schriften/Grundlegung+der+deutschen+Sprachkunst/I+Register] (from Gottsched). (Spellings like "Beywort" are dated since around 1900.)

@W. P. Uzer:

• German terms are more like Latin terms (e.g. nomen in contrary to modern English noun). Thus it might help to understand the Latin terms. Also: "Namenwort" is composed like "nameword" (Name=name, Wort=word), so maybe it's somehow related.
  Though: The same might be true for Dutch, which has terms like "naamwoord" (= nomen) and "zelfstandig naamwoord" & "substantief" (= [nomen] substantivum).
• (Modern) French terms should be more like modern English terms. So (modern) French terms do not help to understand traditional terms; though it maybe influenced the modern English terms and might help to understand them.
• Chinese terms (most likely) did not influence traditional European terms and most likely did not influence modern English terms.
• Maybe German, French, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese terms do not belong here - but then they maybe could be mentioned at en.wiktionary, e.g. as an an appendix or wikisaurus like "Names of parts of speech". Than wikipedia could simply refer to wiktionary for foreign terms.

-00:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC), 80.133.123.218

I guess what I'm looking for is a source that explains the origin of Namenwort, Beiwort, etc. — some of these seem to be calques (loan-translations) of Latin nomen, adjectivum, etc., but a source is needed. Perhaps a German dictionary that has in-depth etymologies would work. — Eru·tuon 17:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Some are, like some Latin grammar terms are translations of Greek terms. Latin nomen/Nomen; literal tanslation: Name (= name); German term: Name (rare), Namenwort (Wort = word), Nennwort (from nennen (or from bennenend, Benennung, but then shortened) + Wort). Latin verbum/Verbum (in antique times verbum temporale); literal translation: Wort (resp. zeitliches Wort, die Zeit betreffendes Wort); German term: Zeitwort, also Tätigkeitswort etc.
Some terms like Eigenschaftswort und Tätigkeitswort don't seem to be translations of Latin terms, but should be new ones, coined by grammarians as they thought it fits better.
A source explaining the origin? I don't know any. Like a source, e.g. Schottel's work combined with Gottsched's work combined with some thinking? Schottel should have "beyständiges/beiständiges Nennwort", Gottsched "Beywort/Beiwort". It's obvious that Gottsched's term is a shortening of Schottel's term (though not necessary shortened by Gottsched). -20:28, 28 January 2015 (UTC), 80.133.123.218 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.196.237.113 (talk)

Adjectives

"It was not until later (e.g. Beauzée, 1767) that the adjective was taken as a separate class."

• Already Gottsched differed between substantives (nomen substantivum; Hauptwort) and adjectives (nomen adjectivum; Beywort). Though: There substantives and adjectives are both nouns (nomen, Nennwort). ([www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Gottsched,+Johann+Christoph/Theoretische+Schriften/Grundlegung+der+deutschen+Sprachkunst/I+Register Gottsched's work]) And already Schottel had this kind of distinction. (As far as I remember he used German terms, which are like "selbständiges Nennwort" and "beiständiges Nennwort" (which became shortend to Beiwort), which look more like the Latin terms.)
• [books.google.de/books?id=C7BeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA11 Jakob Redinger (1659, Latin & German)] writes that there are 5 flectable parts of speech (nomen [Germ.: Nennwort], adnomen [Germ.: Beinennwort; also Latin adjectivum though just in brackets], pronomen, verbum, participium) and 5 inflectibale parts (adverbium, praepositio, conjunctio, interjectio, adjectio [Germ. Zusazwort ("Zusatzwort")]). There articles are missing, but he's talking about Latin (which has no articles), and there nomen means substantive and adnomen means adjective. His terms most likely were not popular, as it's nowadays like English adjective, Latin-German Adjektiv etc. and not adnoun, Adnomen etc. But anyway, he differed between substantives and adjectives and called them both parts of speech.

-10:34, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

But none of this contradicts what was written - it just shows that the example given (the 1767 one) was not the most informative, and ought to have been replaced by an earlier one such as Redinger. W. P. Uzer (talk) 13:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Well. 1. The statement is kind of misleading. Even though Gottsched (and others) viewed adjectives as a subgroup of noun, adjectives already existed as a separate (sub)class. 2. The statement is kind of unsourced. The ref most likely just proofs that Beauzée viewed adjectives as a separate class (and maybe even a main class and not a subclass), but it most likely doesn't proof that he was the first one to view adjectives as a separate main class. 3. Between Redinger and Beauzée are around 100 years, and maybe before Redinger there were others who viewed adjectives as a main class. -20:39, 28 January 2015 (UTC), 80.133.123.218 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.196.237.113 (talk)

Art of Grammar

This is mainly to User:Erutuon: you previously added text and a translation from the Art of Grammar, which leads to a listing of the parts of speech. What I was wondering was whether it goes on to describe the particular parts of speech in the terms given in that section of our article - i.e. do the descriptions given in our text match the original Greek descriptions, as is implied (or are they just some editor's own commentary)? And if they do match, is there a description in the original text for article, which we currently have missing? W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's the section on the article, and my attempt at a translation:

ἄρθρον ἐστὶ μέρος λόγου πτωτικόν, προτασσόμενον +καὶ+ ὑποτασσόμενον τῆς κλίσεως τῶν ὀνομάτων. καὶ ἔστι προτακτικὸν μὲν ὁ, ὑποτακτικὸν δὲ ὅς. ::παρέπεται δὲ αὐτῶι τρία· γένη, ἀριθμοί, πτώσεις. ::γένη μὲν οὖν εἰσι τρία· ὁ ποιητής, ἡ ποίησις, τὸ ποίημα. ::ἀριθμοὶ τρεῖς· +ἑνικός+, δυϊκός, πληθυντικός· ἑνικὸς μὲν ὁ ἡ τό, δυϊκὸς δὲ τώ τά +, πληθυντικὸς δὲ οἱ αἱ τά. ::πτώσεις δὲ ὁ τοῦ τῶι τόν ὦ, +ἡ τῆς τῆι τήν ὦ.

"An article is an declinable [inflected, having cases] part of speech, [both] prefixed [arranged before] and suffixed [arranged after, subordinated], with the ending of nouns. And a prefixed one is the [definite article, m nom sg], a suffixed one is who [the basic relative pronoun, m nom sg].

"Three [things] accompany it: classes [genders], numbers, cases.

"[There are] three genders: the poet, the poetic composition, the poem [examples of a m, a f, and a n noun].

"[There are] three numbers: singular, dual, plural. [The] singular is [the nom sg forms of the article], dual is [the m-f nom du and n nom pl forms of the article], and plural is [the nom pl forms of the article].

"[The] cases are [m nom, gen, dat, acc sg forms of article and the vocative particle O]; [f nom, gen, dat, acc sg forms of article and the vocative particle O]."

So, it seems to me that the article is not completely accurate: here Dionysius uses the Greek word article (literally, joint) for both what we would call the definite article and what we would call a relative pronoun. (The letters in small caps are abbreviations for the genders, cases, and numbers.)

I haven't read enough to be sure whether this is true of other Greek grammarians as well, or whether yet more words would be included under article: for instance, maybe other relative and demonstrative pronouns like οἷος, ὅσος "such as, as many as" (relative pronouns of quality and quantity) and τοῖος, τόσος "this kind, this many" (demonstrative pronouns of quality and quantity). These are related historically and begin with the same sounds as the forms of the relative pronoun and article — /h t/. However, unlike the definite article, they could occur without nouns (as independent rather than adjectival pronouns, if that's the correct terminology) in Classical Greek. The definite article was only a pronoun in the Archaic Greek period, for instance in Homeric Greek. So maybe they would be classified in a different category from the article.

Synchronically it would make sense to lump the article and relative pronoun together, because they're so similar in form in Ancient Greek, although historically they were distinct: the Greek article came from PIE pronouns beginning in *s- and *t-, and the relative pronoun from an adjectival form beginning in *y-, from the same suffix that gave Greek adjectives in -ιος. *s *y both became Greek /h/ at the beginnings of words, and thus the masculine and feminine nominative singular and plural forms of the article became similar to those of the relative pronoun, though the masculine nominative singular of the relative pronoun has the ending /s/. The rest of the forms of the article begin with /t/ while those of the relative pronoun all begin with /h/. — Eru·tuon 19:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I glanced at Dionysius, and in his section on noun he includes the relative and demonstrative pronouns mentioned above (although the demonstrative I mentioned is actually supposed to be τοιοῦτος τοσοῦτος in standard Attic and Koine), as well as interrogatives. That section is much longer, and uses a lot of terms I don't know. The section on pronoun lists only the personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, and possessive pronominal adjectives: for instance, ἐγώ, ἐμαυτοῦ, and ἐμός. So in Dionysius's terminology, perhaps noun includes typical substantives, adjectives, and most pronouns; pronoun includes the personal, reflexive, and possessive pronouns; and article includes the article and the basic relative pronoun. — Eru·tuon 19:37, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

a) E.g. Latin "nomen" can't be translated by modern English "noun", as nomen did include substantives and nouns.

b) Maybe older English "pronoun" meant the same as Latin and German "pronomen" and thus it would be something different than modern English "pronoun".

c) In Latin there were the terms "articulus praepositivus" and "articulus postpositivus" (Greek: ἄρθρον προτακτικόν (ὁ, ἡ, τό = ho, hē, tó) and ἄρθρον ὑποτακτικόν (ὅς, ἥ, ὅ = hós, hḗ, hó)). So in (older) Latin article had another meaning as well.

So grammar terms were/are defined or used differently. Thus: It's either like:

A) One can't translate older terms as modern (English) terms mean something different and as newly coined terms do not exist and most likely wouldn't be accepted. E.g.: modern English "noun" means something else than "nomen", and "name" (which would be a literal translation) would be confusing and wouldn't be accepted as a term for the word class.

Or

B) One can translate older terms with traditional terms, though it could collide with the modern terms, or maybe even translate them with modern terms, but one has to keep in mind that they could be defined differently. E.g.: using "noun" for Latin "nomen" even though it includes substantives (modern English "nouns") and adjectives. "nomen substantive" could then be translated as noun substantive or substantive like it was in traditional usage, or maybe as something like "substantial/essential noun".

Maybe one could write something like "attributed to Dionysius Thrax: "Noun":", i.e. putting quotation marks around the terms to imply that the term is used differently from the modern usage.

PS: In case of the Greek articulus postpositivus = the relative pronoun: Maybe one could simple call it a different classification of a single word. Modern Exemple: The classification of German "selbst" is ambiguous. Some (German) dictionaries label it a particle (Partikel), some a pronoun (Pronomen). But there's no question, what "Pronomen" means.

-93.196.237.113 (talk) 21:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I made a quick update to the article on the basis of it. Someone might like to incorporate more of the detail. W. P. Uzer (talk) 14:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Because of "Article (árthron): a declinable part of speech, taken to include the definite article, but also the basic relative pronoun":
I've just read in (younger) grammar book that in old Greek terms the interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronouns were part of the "noun (ónoma)" and not of the "pronoun (antōnymía)". So there are other differences as well, and thus it might be better to omit such differences resp. to just note that these classes sometimes differ from modern understandings.
-91.63.231.162 (talk) 21:22, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Aristoteles

"Aristotle added another class, "conjunctions" [sýndesmos], which included not only the words known today as conjunctions, but also pronouns, prepositions, and the article."
There's a reference for that, but that's more than questionable:

• [books.google.de/books?id=hkJCAQAAMAAJ] (p.176) states that Aristoteles' conjunction means particle, that are words which can not be inflected. So it would include adverb, interjection, preposition, conjunction, but not pronoun and not article (at least in Greek and German, not in English and maybe in other Romance languages).
• [archive.org/stream/onlatinlanguage02varruoft#page/378/mode/2up] (+ the following page), Varro's "De lingua latina" with a translation as "On the Latin Language":
  • First it is: "In the word-classes in which inflections may develop, the parts of speech are two, unless, following Dion, we divide into three divisions the ideas which are indicated by words: one division which indicates also case, a second which indicates also time, a third which indicates neither. Of these, Aristotle says that there are two parts of speech; nouns, like homo 'man' and equus 'horse', and verbs like legit 'gathers' and currit 'runs'." That sounds like: noun (vocabulum/nomen) = noun substantive, noun adjective, numeral, pronoun, participle, article (in Greek and German, not in Latin and English); verb (verbum) = verb; conjunction (conjunctio/convinctio) = adverb, interjection, conjunction, preposition.
  • Though than it is: "Of the two kinds, noun and verbs, certain words are primary and certain are secondary: primary like homo 'man' and scribit 'writes', and secondary like doctus 'learned' and docte 'learnedly', for we say homo doctos 'a learned man' and scribit docte 'writes learnedly'. These ideas are attended by those of place and time, because neither homo nor scribit can be asserted without the presupposition of place and of time -- yet in such a way that place is more closely associated with the idea of the noun homo, and time more closely with the act of writing." That sounds like noun includes noun substantives and noun adjectives (but could also include the other words with cases), but that may also sound like verb includes both verbs and adverbs.
• In [penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/1B*.html] it's: "18 Earlier writers, among them Aristotle himself and Theodectes, hold that there are but three, verbs, nouns and convinctions. Their view was that the force of language resided in the verbs, and the matter in the nouns (for the one is what we speak, the other that which we speak about), while the duty of the convinctions was to provide a link between the nouns and the verbs. I know that conjunction is the term in general use. But convinction seems to me to be the more accurate translation of the Greek συνδεσμός. 19 Gradually the number was increased by the philosophers, more especially by the Stoics: articles were first added to the convinctions, then prepositions: to nouns appellations were added, then the pronoun and finally the participle, which holds a middle position between the verb and the noun. To the verb itself was added the adverb. Our own language dispenses with the articles, which are therefore distributed among the other parts of speech. 20 But interjections must be added to those already mentioned.". That sounds like: noun includes noun substantive, noun adjective, numeral, pronoun, participle; verb includes verb, adverb; conjunction includes conjunction, preposition, article.
  • Interjection might either belong to the verb (as it was part of the adverb in Dionysius Thrax Techne Grammatike) or to the conjunction (as interjections are particles, not flectable words, like conjunctions and prepositions).
  • It might be that "article" includes both articulus praepositivus and articulus postpositivus (which is viewed as a relative pronoun in modern times). But then, saying that "pronouns are part of the conjunction" is wrong anyway. Correctly that would be, if article includes both types of article, "some pronouns are part of the noun, while some are part of the conjunction". [Also see the PS.]
  • BTW: Later in the text it is said that some say that noun includes proper nouns and appellative nouns (common nouns), while some others say that there are "propers" and "appellatives" (adding noun to them here would be misleading). The common variant should be similar to the modern one: noun is either abstract or concrete, the concrete is proper or appellative (common), or maybe also collective or material (some add the collective and material noun to concrete noun, while others add it to appellative).

Thus: Correctly it's most likely that there are different interpretations of Aristoteles' terms, some that it's this way, some others say it's that way. So the best way should be to write something like "There are different interpretations of Aristoteles' terms. Some that it's this way, some others say it's that way." in the article.
PS - might also relate to the above discussion and to the following statements in the article: "Article (árthron): a declinable part of speech, taken to include the definite article, but also the basic relative pronoun" and "The Latin grammarian Priscian (fl. 500 AD) modified the above eightfold system, excluding "article"". Isn't the Latin "qui, quae, quod" the basic relative pronoun of Latin? So: In case of Greek "article" and "pronoun" might mean something different in antique times than they mean nowadays, but in case of Latin they mean the same: Quintilian and Priscian exclude the article from Latin, but they don't exclude the Latin relative pronoun. -02:59, 24 March 2015 (UTC), PS: 04:48, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

VANDALISM

The introduction has been vandalized to the extent it makes no sense. It is more than just the last edit. Some-body please clean it up. Kdammers (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Adverbs

Perhaps a thorough explanation of the difference between adverbs and adjectives would help. Parts of speech can sometimes get confusing especially with adverbs and adjectives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boorumr (talk • contribs) 18:56, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

"instead are the noun they refer to bent":  ??

Original context in lede:

Uralic languages like Finnish and Hungarian lacks prepositions (instead are the noun they refer to bent), a very significant difference.

I have no clue what this phrase means in standard English. Help? --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:29, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Pete Tillman: My guess is that they intended to say that, instead of adding a preposition before a noun to achieve an effect, the noun is inflected ("bent") to achieve the same effect. Thus, for English and Czech: "I gave the cup to Peter" would be rendered as Czech "Hrnek jsem dal Petrovi"; here, English uses preposition "to" for an effect that is achieved in Czech by inflecting the noun "Petr" to yield "Petrovi". Just a guess. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:38, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Gone now. No time at the moment to look further, sorry. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 23:47, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Will pronouns remain a closed class, or will they open?

It is noted that pronouns remain a closed class (a class of words rarely if ever added to), but now with the sudden affection of "76 genders" and asking "what your pronouns are", will that remain true? There should be a section mentioning pronouns will become an open class with designer genders. 174.114.77.231 (talk) 02:09, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Participles and gerunds/verbal nouns

The page does not currently say where participles and gerunds (or verbal nouns in some languages) fit. These kinds of words are somewhat ambiguous. Participles are traditionally considered verb forms, and have some properties typically associated with verbs. Yet they can also modify nouns like adjectives (e.g. a falling tree), and in many languages such as German, they inflect like adjectives too. The same question applies to gerunds or verbal nouns as well. While they have verbal properties, such as taking objects, they inflect like nouns in some languages and can also have grammatical gender.

How do POS/lexical category classifications figure in these cases? Do they consider them verbs, or nouns and adjectives? Does their part of speech depend on how they are used, with some uses being verbal and others being adjectival/nominal? Or could they even be given their own label, separate from all of these, to accurately encompass both the verbal and adjectival/nominal properties? Rua (mew) 11:14, 25 April 2019 (UTC)